The Fox of the Forest
by Remakeillusions
Summary: The hair at the back of her neck prickles and she shudders in the biting night air. She knows, at that moment, that she's no longer alone. A 'what if' fic. Naruto is taken from the village at an early age but something goes wrong. mostly alone, Naruto grows up in the wilderness. Narusaku. Mostly AU. Feral!Naruto.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: The hair at the back of her neck prickles and she shudders in the biting night air. She knows, at that moment, that she's no longer alone. A 'what if' fic. Naruto is taken from the village at an early age but something goes wrong. mostly alone, Naruto grows up in the wilderness. Narusaku. Mostly AU. Feral!Naruto.

**A/N: You may or may not notice but a portion of this chapter if from _Forever_, which is part if the _Shiver_ trilogy. Some ideas like Naruto's outfit are also from _Mononoke_. This is because my inspiration has come from _Shiver_ along with _Princess Mononoke_ along with my desire to write what i think feral!naruto would be like.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shiver, Princess Mononoke or Naruto nor do i claim any of their work as my own**

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><p>The forest was so, so quiet.<p>

Darkness smothered the world like a blanket. Dust hung in the air of the nighttime wood, the moonlight made constellations of the particles where is creep-ed through the branches overhead.

The only sound is a faint whisper of breath, inhaled slowly through bared teeth. The air is cold over his canines.

A dry stick began to pop under his foot.

Pause.

Wait.

He moved slowly, taking a long time to lift his weight off the stick. His breath flowed into a stream of moonlight, curling and contorting eerily under the light.

There is a live, rustling sound nearby drawing him closer, catching his attention and holding it. His stomach is tight and empty.

The panicked animal is close by. _'A deer?'__._ The noise of a creek fills the long moment with its muttering gurgle. _'How large is the animal? Is it injured?'_he could smell the stench of blood thick in the air along with the smell of humans. There must have been another battle.

Something brushed his shoulder. Soft. Tender.

He wanted to flinch.

Wanted to turn and snap it between its teeth.

But he is too quiet. Instead he freezes for a long, long moment, and then he turns his head to see what is still brushing his side with a tender touch.

Red. It's floating in the air, drifting in the breeze. Steel dull in the night. His mind bends and burns, trying to remember. _'What was its name again?'_

ah... _'Hitai-ate'_

It must have been lost in the fight. Beyond it, scattered among the trees and littering the undergrowth are items imbued with a metallic, hostile smell. This time he knows straight away what they are.

He circles around, lip curled, avoiding the sharp-edged weapons like he has so many times before and there, suddenly, is his prey.

Only it's not a deer.

It's a girl. She's kneeling in the dirt, hands gripping the long-dead body of her teammate, whimpering strange noises while water runs down her cheeks. Where the moonlight touches her is is easy to see the red against the stark-white of her skin.

Blood. His nostrils are full of the smell of it. Already uneasy he slinked further back into the darkness.

The night conceals his presence and he leaves no trace. Come morning the ninja won't even realize he had been there.

"Wh-who's there?!" The girl is trembling.

He freezes

She's looking right in his direction but he knows she couldn't see him. She _can't_ see him. This is his forest.

"Come out!" She lowers the body down to the earth and he can see the stab wound to the body's chest now. He stays silent and still

"I can sense your chakra!" her eyes are steel, defiant, even as her shaky hand and white knuckled grip on her kunai betray her.

He tenses, but it's too late, she's taken a step forward and can see him now. She stares. The hair on the back of his neck prickles. Danger hisses in his ears.

He bares his teeth at her, trying to ease backward. _'Why isn't she attacking?' _They always attack. _'Why isn't she yelling?'_ They do that too, and then they chase him.

In return he kills them.

She's just staring and he doesn't know what to do. He will not turn his back to her. He can not!

His belly brushes the undergrowth as he crouches, growl starting so slowly that he feels it on his tongue before he can hear it.

The girls eyes are on him still, challenging him, holding him.

"H-hey" she takes another step forward. Her eyes have stopped leaking. Now they are wide.

His growl turns ferocious and he snaps at the air, warning her. _'Don't come closer, don't come closer'._

This whole situation is just so _wrong_ to him. She's not reacting the way the others did on the rare occasion he encountered them, she's not poised to attack, nor is she running away. _'Why?'_

"Who are you?" Her voice is stronger now, her eyes narrowed. They're green, he realizes. Like the forest during spring.

Blood rushed through his ears as he tried to back away again, wanting to escape the girl and her scrutinizing eyes.

She stepped forward.

He stepped back.

When his back leg hits a tree and he almost whimpers in surprise. Instead he tenses, ready to leap and attack if the girl even twitched.

Somehow she notices his change in posture and backs away again. Her grip on her weapon loosens.

This is what he's been waiting for.

Before she can even blink he is on top of her, teeth dangerously close to her face, ferociously growling. She is sprawled underneath him, frightened eyes watching back, kunai lost somewhere behind her

He snaps at her neck, drawing a trickle of blood. Her body goes limp with defeat.

Then he is gone, branches clawing at him while he escapes. The red hitai-ate is fluttering like a leaf on the branch as he passes it. This time he pays it no mind. His mind is shrieking at him to _'run!'_ To '_Get away!'_ So he does.

He runs until the scent of blood no longer tickles his nose. Until the normal noise of the forest returns, drowning out the screaming silence that surrounded the battlefield. He runs until the girl fades from his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/n: I actually don't like this chapter that much cause i think it's crap quality. also sorry that both chapters so far are so short.**

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><p>The hair at the back of her neck prickles and she shudders in the biting night air. Carefully she clutches the body of her comrade closer. His skin is stone cold now and skin pale, except for the horrible blotches of red that cover both of them.<p>

She knows, at that moment, that she's no longer alone.

Something is watching her.

Her eyes dart around the surrounding trees, searching the shadows of the dimly lit forest for movement. her whole body tenses but she is already so exhausted.

Pink threads of hair whip around her face as her head moves from side to side. She needs to cut it again.

_'__Where?'_

Her chakra flares as she panics, emerald eyes wide, she's alone, all of her teams opponents are dead too, but that doesn't rule out another attack.

Then she senses it.

It's a single signature less than two metres away, hidden in the underbush.

"Wh-who's there?" Her voice waivers and she curses to herself. Something is off, the chakra doesn't feel quite right.

The thundering of her heart drowns out the silence. No movement. No sound. It's like nothings there at all.

"Come out!" Her lips press into a thin line.

One hand slips into her kunai pouch even as the other lowers her teammates body. She stares intently in the direction she sensed the signature.

"I can sense your chakra!" She readies for an attack, tensing her muscles and widening her stance. Her grip tightens on the kunai.

Her hands are shaking, and not just from chakra exhaustion.

Wary, she takes a step forward and has to bite back a gasp.

It's no ninja.

The white fur of an animal covers his body, a wolf pelt maybe, but she can still see his eyes through the shadows. The're piercing blue. Her eyes roam along his strong jawline for a second, covered in faint blonde stubble.

His lips are pulled back in a snarl.

They stay like that for a moment.

Then he is growling at her.

"H-hey" Sakura takes a step towards the man-beast, holding her kunai in front of her in a defensive stance.

She has no idea what to do, she's never been trained to deal with something like this other than _kill._

His growl increases and he snaps at her, his sharp canines glinting as his teeth click together.

she can see him trying to back up in that weird crouch of his.

His back leg slides back along the forest floor before his hand follows, his body is poised and ready and she can see the muscles coiling under his dirt-smudged skin.

"Who are you?" She narrows her eyes. No matter how animalistic this boy-no, _man_ seemed, he was still human.

She took another step forward, intent on cornering him to get answers.

He took a step back.

All the while their eyes remained locked.

She notices when he tenses and his growl thunders in his chest. Its a warning. Shes seen and learned enough from the Inuzuka's to know.

Slowly she backs away a pace, holding her breath and relaxing slightly when the noise from between his teeth eases.

He's on her before her eyes can even widen in realization, his weight pinning her to the forest floor.

The breath leaves her lungs suddenly, leaving her gasping for air from the impact. She struggles for a moment, thrashing about, trying to twist from his predatory grasp. Dry sticks crack under her and a stone is digging into her hip. She knows it'll bruise.

Blood dribbles from her shoulders where his _claws _have sunken into her skin.

He's crouched slightly over her, his face covered in a vicious snarl. She can feel his hot breath on her neck. The fur of his pelt tickles his nose as his teeth graze her neck and she can smell a musty forest smell that lingers in her nostrils.

His canines are slicing at the pale flesh of her neck. Sakura feels the blood blossoming at the wound and she goes slack.

_'__This is it'_she thinks. _'__My name will never be on the memorial stone' _Her sensei had always taught them what a great honor it was to have your name carved there_._ But_s_he won't die in some grand battle for her country one day. Her name will never be on the stone.

She will die here, under the teeth of this beast, _man_, she reminds herself, all alone.

Then, as suddenly as he arrived, he is gone.

Her heart is beating a mile a minute as she lies there staring up at the stray threads of moonlight that filter through the trees, pale hair sprawled around her.

Her breath comes in short, chest heaving gasps.

'_Wha-' _Her mind is only working in half-formed words.

The musty-forest scent remains in her nose.


End file.
